Knowledge payment, the logic of hot selling

1. Knowledge Entrepreneurship was Hot

Recently, a friend of mine, A Fei, has been very busy, tinkering with various online platforms every day. I couldn't help but ask him, what are you trying to authenticate by taking photos of your ID card every day?

Ah Fei smiled proudly and said, I want to be an Internet celebrity !

Phew, the author couldn't help but laugh out loud. Seeing my distrustful look, A Fei quickly said, she is not the kind of internet celebrity with a celebrity face who does live broadcasts , she is a knowledge internet celebrity!

As he said this, he casually listed, "You see, knowledge payment is very popular recently. I happen to be good at public speaking, and I want to start a knowledge payment content business in this field."

But A Fei is very confused. There are too many knowledge payment platforms, such as Himalaya , Duoduo , Zhihu Live, Qianliao , Xiaomiquan , Fantuan, Fenda , Xiaoetong , Wenshi... Where should he make the first pot of gold?

This is also a common concern for many young entrepreneurs who are interested in knowledge payment. At the same time, in midsummer, knowledge payment has become even more popular.

On June 6, Himalaya launched the 66th Membership Day, introducing membership services around paid knowledge content and strengthening the stickiness of paying users . In three days, it gathered 3.42 million members and member sales reached 61.14 million. According to information released by the platform, the average monthly AR PU value of its paying users has exceeded 90 yuan since the beginning of this year.

On June 3, Qianliao held a summit on “Breaking the Barrier of Knowledge Monetization” and invited more than 300 KOLs . The platform already has 800,000 registered lecturers, and 50,000 lecturers who have earned more than 500 yuan per course.

On May 18, Duoduo held a knowledge release conference, where Luo Pang released 12 knowledge products and an internal quality control manual. The sales volume of his subscription column has reached 2.06 million copies.

On May 17, Zhihu launched the “Knowledge Market” and introduced rules similar to Taobao ’s “7-day no-reason refund”. Zhihu Live has been online for 11 months, and has held 2,900 sessions, with more than 3 million participants. The average hourly wage of the speakers has reached 11,000 yuan.

On May 6, 36kr released its annual report on knowledge payment, pointing out that the current overall economic scale of this field is expected to reach 30-50 billion yuan, becoming a "new outlet."

At the beginning of the year, industry media Huxiu, 36kr and Titanium Media launched their own paid knowledge membership services.

…

At the same time, knowledge entrepreneurs in various segments began to achieve enviable results. The single-day sales of "How to Develop a Good Voice" by voice coach Xu Jie reached 1.9 million, the paid course "Is Classical Music Difficult?" by Shanghai Conservatory of Music professor Tian Yimiao reached 7.815 million views, and the paid course "How to Be a Non-Anxious Parent" by East China Normal University psychology professor Chen Mo reached 3.506 million views.

At the end of last year, I wrote an article entitled "The Four-Nation War in the Field of Knowledge", predicting that "the anxiety of the middle class" will gradually lead to the explosion of knowledge payment. So, half a year has passed, how has the industry situation changed?

If you want to do paid knowledge, is now the best time? Has the first pot of gold arrived for “knowledge entrepreneurs”?

2. Good news: Phase 1 verification completed

Let me tell you the good news first. Over the past six months, we have come to a few conclusions:

1. The four-nation war has evolved into a "competition among many players", and more and more players are pouring into the knowledge payment field

Unlike group buying, live streaming, and shared bikes , although there are many players, there are not many that copy each other, and everyone has their own way of playing. This shows that although the demand for "knowledge payment" exists, the best entry and solution model still needs to be demonstrated. The main modes at present are:

a. Content publishing (celebrity columns, courses, programs): Himalaya, Dedao

b. Question and answer consultation: Fen Da

c. Live sharing: Zhihu Live, Qianliao

d. Social circle group: small secret circle, rice ball

e. Distribution tools : Xiaoetong, Xinbang

f. Members: Himalaya, Huxiu

2. Voice becomes the preferred mode

Whether it is the sales courses of Himalaya and Dedao, or the live sharing of Zhihu Live and Qianliao, voice is the preferred mode, mainly because:

a. It is more in line with modern people's learning scenarios and habits. Urban white-collar workers are busy with work and can do other things while listening and learning;

b. Compared with pictures and texts, copyright protection is relatively better; compared with videos, the production cost threshold is lower;

c. Sound can convey richer information, such as the rhythm and strength of speaking.

3. Users gradually develop the habit of paying

In 2017, live streaming began to lose popularity and users had become tired of “rewards”. At the same time, the knowledge payment sector has grown significantly. According to public data on the Internet, the number of paid knowledge users has reached 50 million. According to public data from Himalaya, the average monthly AURP value of the platform's paid users is 90 yuan, which has exceeded the industry average for online literature and videos.

Knowledge payment is becoming a new growth point in the content field, and it is even possible that it will become the "main force" of content payment in the future.

4. Vertical segments are on the rise

According to the list published by the New Knowledge List, the hot contents currently ranked at the top include Li Xiaolai and Wu Xiaobo in the finance and technology categories, as well as personal growth categories such as Speak Well, Little Knowledge, and Voice Coach, and sentiment cultivation categories such as Tian Yimiao from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, The Most Beautiful Tang Poems, and A Detailed Account of A Dream of Red Mansions are also gradually gaining popularity.

Knowledge payment has expanded from the initially popular business finance and skill development to more and richer sub-sectors. In the next few years, a "leader" may emerge in each vertical field.

5. The content explosion model has matured

All knowledge payment platforms already have cases of big sales, from Himalaya's "Talk Well", to Li Xiang's Business Insider on Dedao, to Kai-Fu Lee's sharing on Zhihu Live, each of them has its own popular "explosive" benchmark.

More importantly, in the process of creating popular content, each company has accumulated experience and formed a gradually enriched and improved "routine".

Today we will focus on the "content blockbuster" model, because it has become the first fully proven model for knowledge payment.

3. The logic of hot selling

After hearing what I said, A Fei suddenly became excited. I also want to create a hit product!

But is it really that easy to create a knowledge hit? Is this a bonus for a few "head players", or can everyone dig out this pot of gold?

Behind the explosive knowledge is actually the "content publishing model" of knowledge payment. Its logic is simple:

1. Platforms like Himalaya are like publishing houses (booksellers) and training institutions (courses);

2. Knowledge-based paid products such as Talk Well and Chen Zhiwu’s Finance Course are like books (videos, audios, courses) released by publishing houses;

3. When a paid knowledge product becomes a hit, it actually becomes a "popular best-selling book (course) for a while."

Do you understand? The essence of knowledge blockbusters is the "best-selling book" model.

Just like "Influence", "Giant Babies Country", "Freaky Psychology", "Currency War", "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus", and "Yu Shiwei Lectures" these "non-fiction books" under the name of knowledge will become popular books.

Just like Discovery Channel, Yi Zhongtian's Three Kingdoms, and A Bite of China can become popular knowledge programs.

Compared with other models, the route taken by Himalaya and Get is actually the most natural and mature model. They sell knowledge as books, movies and audio-visuals, so they can use all the "routines" used by publishers and film companies.

Therefore, the formula for knowledge blockbusters is: universality + pain points + ease of use + celebrities + groups + promotion + packaging + psychology

1. Universal. The target population should be wide enough, preferably the (pseudo) middle-class people who are willing and able to pay, otherwise who will spend the money? If you all want to improve your eloquence, or achieve financial freedom, come to me. Therefore, knowledge payment must move from people’s general hot spots (finance, skills) to vertical segments. Even vertical segments are segmented needs of people with a large “willingness to pay” population. The current popular categories include business and finance, personal growth, foreign language training, Chinese traditional music, parent-child health care, etc.

2. Pain points. Products that solve specific problems in real life tend to sell better. For example, "Speak Well" solves speaking problems in specific scenarios, including communication and negotiation. What Li Xiang and Fan Deng solve is the problem of information explosion, insufficient time and eyeballs. They help you filter useful information and convert it into easy-to-understand words.

3. Easy to use. Although learning is never an easy thing, paid knowledge products must be "easy to use" . On the one hand, the course must be short, concise and not take too long or contain too much information. It should give people a sense of ease that "progress can be made in ten minutes a day." On the other hand, the content should be presented in a lively and interesting way, combining education with entertainment, and keep your attention through outstanding speaking skills.

4. Celebrity. Knowledge payment is not a "designated teaching material" and has not gone through the process of "publishing" to be endorsed by a national institution. In order to gain people's trust, it must introduce celebrity IP endorsement. Just imagine, if Huang Zhizhong and Ma Weiwei were not the ones teaching how to speak well, and if Xiong Hao was not the one teaching negotiation skills, even if the quality of the content was high, would it be possible to achieve such good sales?

5. Group. It’s not enough to just have a celebrity endorsement; people around you must also be buying the product in order to generate the trust of “group identity.” Luo Pang is an expert in this area. From his early membership to the present, he has accumulated a considerable number of people, and each time the H5 virus is spread, it is just right.

6. Promotion. Even if 1 to 5 are all met, there are still people who are on the sidelines and are reluctant to take the first step. At this time, promotion is very important. The promotion of Zhihu Live in the second half of 2016 had obvious effects, while the 123 Knowledge Carnival and 66 Membership Day launched by Himalaya were catching up with the sales volume at the beginning of Alibaba's Double 11.

7. Packaging. In order to highlight their advantages, these knowledge-based paid products must be carefully packaged, designed and polished. For example, Luo Pang’s quality control approach and Himalaya’s knowledge influencer incubation system are meant to catch the eye and be very classy from the first glance.

8. Psychology. It remains to be seen whether these paid knowledge products can really solve your problems and make you a "knowledgeable person". However, a good piece of knowledge will definitely give you psychological massage and relieve the anxiety in the hearts of the middle class, and then build a certain identity label and sense of superiority : Look, I bought it, I am knowledgeable and love to learn, and my lifestyle is different from that of the low-class losers!

In this way, knowledge platforms that have completed the first phase of commercial verification only need to do the following things to quickly expand their results:

1. Scale replication. Produce more popular products, and even produce them in batches, in a standardized and large-scale manner, such as Himalaya’s knowledge influencer matrix and incubation system.

2. Seize the lead. Hot-selling products can become the "top" content in most segments, thereby obtaining higher gross profits, such as being built from top to bottom starting from the top.

3. Build brands and standards. Hot-selling products go from being popular to being classics, and even becoming standards in niche industries, thereby generating continued repurchase.

Sell ​​more, sell better, sell longer... This story is beautiful, but is it that simple to put into practice? Knowing the above routines, can knowledge entrepreneurs create a hit product?

4. Bad news: three bottlenecks

Recently, the public account "老汪的人" wrote an article, explaining the five reasons why he no longer renews a certain knowledge payment product:

First, I can’t even read all the free information, let alone the paid ones;

Second, use too low a frequency;

Third, if I still renew my subscription under such a low frequency, wouldn’t it be like putting an alarm clock by my bed, reminding and stimulating me every day, “Old Wang, you don’t like to study, Old Wang, you waste money, Old Wang, you are a lazy guy”;

Fourth, the content quality of some free public accounts and headlines is unambiguous;

Fifth, poverty.

It should be noted that what he said was "no longer renewing", which is a question of repurchase. These few truths reveal the three major bottlenecks in the scale expansion of knowledge "explosive products". You must first figure out how to deal with them:

1. Empowerment issue: How is “paid” better than “free”?

Interestingly, the primary competitor facing knowledge payment is not other paid products, but free content.

Imagine that Li Xiang made a business internal reference. What if someone of equal fame also did a free internal test (of course Li Xiang has already done it for free)? It's good to speak well and have eloquence, but what about a person of equal fame who comes to speak eloquently for free? For example, are many of today’s paid columns really better written than the official accounts of industry bigwigs?

The first difficulty of paid products is to explain the reason for charging, to explain that they are more valuable than free content and that they are unique and scarce . But in fact, this value is often difficult to measure, and everyone has their own reasons.

Perhaps you may ask, why should high-quality content producers create free content? Why not just charge for it altogether? In short, it is actually "everyone has their own ambitions". Some big names pursue "communication and traffic ", while others pursue "profit and realization" -

If I want to create paid content , the dissemination and influence of my content will definitely be limited. Why don’t I increase my traffic and take on advertising in the future?

Therefore, free high-quality content producers who pursue traffic and dissemination are the first threat to knowledge payment. If you are starting a knowledge business, first think about how to explain the "reason for paying" in one sentence.

2. The problem of copying: Can the hit model be widely copied?

The "explosive" knowledge model requires celebrity endorsement , but not every celebrity is suitable, and the more famous the better. The prerequisite is that the celebrity is suitable for packaging and creating IP and is attractive. What does it mean?

First of all, not all academic big names are suitable for "knowledge payment", because many of them are actually big names in academic research, but not necessarily big names in academic "packaging and dissemination". They do in-depth research, but what they say may not be "lively, interesting, and easy to understand", which violates the principle of accessibility.

Secondly, for many big names in business practice, the time and opportunity costs of this model are too high and it lacks appeal. These people can often earn tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour to complete a project. Time is too valuable and there are too many choices. Why bother thinking hard about knowledge courses every day?

Again, for ordinary people who have no traffic and cannot build IP, even if they have real talents and skills, they may be submerged in the blink of an eye in the Internet age of information explosion. The result is that the carefully prepared things will not make any money at all.

"Masters are not superficial, big names are not rare, and ordinary people don't make money." As a result, the space for replicating the explosive model is limited. This person must have a certain amount of traffic and topicality, have a certain knowledge base and be good at explaining things in simple terms, and really feel ok with this model and be willing to invest in it. According to Luo Pang, the minimum income is 1 million every year.

Therefore, just as not every young literary person is suitable to be a self-media person, not every young intellectual can become a "knowledge entrepreneur." You must first understand your own characteristics, and then find a suitable platform, get quality control, Himalaya's incubation and training system, and so on.

3. The issue of repeat purchases: will users continue to buy after trying a new product?

This question is relatively complex, and there are at least a few points to consider:

a. Is the user satisfied with the experience?

Satisfaction is the basic prerequisite for most repeat purchases. However, the first problem with many paid knowledge products nowadays is that users "buy but do not read" or "simply cannot digest them all." Of course, some people may say that users cannot read books unless they borrow them. But imagine if a user never finishes reading a book by the same author, the possibility of repurchase will be greatly reduced the next time he publishes a new book.

In addition, knowledge payment is a non-standard product, which makes it difficult to unify user expectations. In this case, how to satisfy the majority of people is a difficult problem? This is also the biggest difference between content and education and training. Education and training (examination) often has an authoritative standardized lesson plan and examination, and the results are also easy to measure, which is to look at the examination success rate.

Perhaps you would think that users pay for knowledge not for the satisfaction of reading and digesting, but to purchase a momentary "sense of ritual", a kind of psychological satisfaction that relieves anxiety and establishes a sense of superiority. But the question is, why do users who are easily tempted by new things always satisfy themselves by "buying without reading" your products? Aren't they tired of it?

b. Is there any continuous demand scenario?

The embarrassment of many paid knowledge services is that the moment users “finish learning”, they no longer need the information. Whether or not a sustained demand scenario can be generated is crucial. Or, can it be embedded into the user's lifestyle, making him feel that it is an essential part of his own petty-bourgeois style?

c. Are there any other means of stickiness?

For example, if you let users pay sunk costs and they have already learned your content, then it will definitely be more convenient for them to continue learning than to start from scratch and learn someone else's content.

For example, is there some free content to provide to users to establish daily connections and sales reach? This puts a lot of pressure on us.

For example, can users form a personalized sense of identification with content producers similar to IP, I like you so I support you; or some kind of community identity, Luo Pang is an expert in this regard.

d. What about alternative solutions?

The user was very satisfied with his first experience, but the second time he found "pirated" products on Taobao and could download all the content from the network disk for very little money. What would you do?

To solve the above three problems, you must make a systematic plan from the beginning. Frankly speaking, knowledge entrepreneurship looks great, but it may not be suitable for most people.

Speaking of this, A Fei is still very puzzled. There are so many knowledge payment platforms, which one should I go to?

6. Which platform should I go to for gold?

Currently, there are 2,000 knowledge influencers in Ximalaya’s paid area, making it the number one platform for knowledge influencers. Zhihu, the leading knowledge community, has completely lifted the threshold for live streaming, while Duoduo has launched 24 columns in line with the boutique route.

If compared with e -commerce , Himalaya is the Tmall model, Zhihu Live is closer to Taobao, and Duoduo is a boutique store. It is difficult for us to determine today which model will be the best, but what is certain is that there should be different choices for different knowledge entrepreneurs at different stages.

If you don’t have a mature course plan yet and just want to do an “experiment” in knowledge entrepreneurship, then the best way is to first accumulate a certain amount of traffic and reputation on Zhihu (a certain topic), and then try to do a live sharing.

If you already have a relatively complete course plan and think you can be packaged and developed, then Himalaya's anchor incubation system would be a good choice.

If you are already famous and think you have high attainments in your professional field and have the potential to become an IP, then you should contact Himalaya directly or get the first recommendation.

Compare the features of the three platforms:

The characteristics obtained are that the packaging marketing ability is the strongest, but the threshold is also the highest;

Ximalaya is a content media platform with the largest traffic and a relatively mature incubation system, but it must find the right niche, otherwise it will be easily drowned in the sea of ​​knowledge influencers;

Zhihu Live has the best community atmosphere and users have higher willingness and ability to pay, but it requires a certain traffic base and high requirements for professionalism and problem-solving ability, otherwise it is easy to get bad reviews.

Knowledge entrepreneurship is not a whim. You have to think clearly whether you want to earn some pocket money or build a personal brand and take a semi-professional path.

If I make this my career, is the prospect promising?

7. How big will the future market be?

The current estimate is that the number of knowledge payment users has reached 50 million, and the overall scale of knowledge payment can reach 50 billion yuan in 2017. So if we push forward further, what about the next five years?

In 2015, the national publishing industry's revenue was 1,996.71 billion yuan. Let's make two assumptions:

1. In the foreseeable future, books and audio-visual products that cannot adapt to the fast-paced modern society are likely to gradually decline like newspapers, magazines and television, while content consumption based on the Internet and mobile terminals may become the mainstream in the future. How big will this market be?

2. Among the people who consume online content, the new middle class who have relatively good willingness and ability to pay, the primary problem is not "boredom and need to relax", but "alleviating identity anxiety, obtaining class labels and finding advantageous resources to continue to move forward."

If the above two points are true, then compared to purely entertainment content, knowledge payment that combines education with entertainment will have a clear period of growth.

When the media reported that Himalaya was going to upgrade from the No. 1 platform for knowledge influencers to the No. 1 platform for content consumption, we were unable to judge whether this was a goal vision or a marketing slogan. However, whether it was the astonishing sales data of 60 million achieved by Himalaya's 123 Knowledge Festival and 66 Member Days, or the hit myths created by the boutique columns on Dedao, they all seemed to indicate that knowledge payment is indeed becoming a growth engine and an important component of content consumption.

Therefore, let’s occupy every market that books have ever occupied, and create “Influence” and “Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus” in the field of paid knowledge. The segmented fields are our stars and the sea.

8. Two misunderstandings that must be clarified

1. Is knowledge payment online education ?

An investor added me and sent me a series of questions about knowledge payment late at night. The gist of the question was: For this new form of MOOC, what do you think is the key node of market competition? Which one has more advantages?

I only said one thing at the time: this wave of knowledge payment is definitely not MOOC, and has basically nothing to do with online education.

The current wave of knowledge payment is different from the online education investment boom in 2015, and belongs to the two tracks of content and education respectively. If you use the logic of education to understand knowledge payment, you may be wrong from the beginning.

So, what are the specific differences? Please see the table below:

Knowledge payment goes to the left, online education goes to the right.

2. Are Luo Pang and others wrong?

The biggest accusation against Luo Pang and others in the world now is that what you spread is "second-hand knowledge", not real learning.

But is “second-hand knowledge” really wrong?

First-hand knowledge (professional academic) is usually not very vivid and interesting after you learn it, and there are not many stories to tell. Second-hand knowledge is mostly simplified and packaged to become entertaining and educational, but the depth, rigor and system of the content are sacrificed, and it often becomes "general reading".

Is “second-hand knowledge” really a new thing? In fact, for thousands of years, Chinese people have been accustomed to second-hand reading. In modern times, from briefings and internal references to popular science readings, from "100,000 Whys" to abridged editions of famous works, from the mysterious UFO exploration Science Illustrated to Yi Zhongtian's Comments on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, from A Bite of China to National Geographic, isn't this all there?

When we were young, we read "100,000 Whys" and felt like we were scientists and little doctors. When we grow up, we pay for knowledge, and even if we can't finish listening to it, we still feel that we are cool and middle class. Isn't this the same thing?

Luo Pang’s “second-hand knowledge” is true. In modern society with information explosion, everyone only needs to master first-hand knowledge in the field they are good at. It is enough to know some basic common sense in other fields. It is always better to consume "second-hand" products than not reading at all.

It’s just that Luo Pang exaggerated this story a bit, saying that “second-hand knowledge” will become the mainstream of learning in the future, which has touched the sensitive nerves of the intellectual community.

9. The biggest difficulty is attention

Why do many people buy courses but don’t have time to listen to them?

There is an important trend in modern society: the amount of information is increasing, people's attention is becoming more and more dispersed, and cognitive habits are becoming more and more fragmented.

In this context, it is difficult for users to maintain their attention. They have no patience and what they need is simple and quick satisfaction.

Therefore, the "scarcity of user attention" is the biggest difficulty in designing knowledge-based paid products. In the past, many online education programs failed precisely here.

When absorbing any kind of knowledge, you must maintain your attention, think while learning, and even put it into practice and action quickly. Otherwise, it is likely to go in one ear and out the other. Most of the time, you may understand it when you hear it, learn it when it is said, but forget it as soon as it is over, make mistakes when you do it, become impatient and cannot sit still after a while, and in the end it is of no use.

"Indecision and laziness" are human nature, and no product that goes against human nature can be made. In offline learning, we can at least have a classroom atmosphere and teacher-student interaction to keep our attention, but in unsupervised personal consumption, if the content is not suspenseful and extremely interesting, users may quickly lose focus.

10. What is the future of the paid knowledge “content model”?

The first phase of “knowledge blockbuster” has been verified, so what’s next?

In my opinion, the next step for paid knowledge content entrepreneurship must be to "move from popular to classic" and seize the top position in the niche field. The reason why it has become a "popular trend" at the moment may be mainly due to its "label meaning" of alleviating the anxiety of the middle class, which is similar to queuing up to drink Heytea or eat Bao Shifu.

However, the future of paid knowledge content entrepreneurship should be far more than this. In the future, it should replace books and audio-visuals and become as important as coffee and rice. Here are a few ideas:

a. A stepping stone. It has become the standard for a certain niche category and a must-read classic. If you have not consumed it, you would be embarrassed to say that you have learned it. It has even become the basic threshold for obtaining certain advantageous resources.

b. Tool library. Becoming a reference tool for implementing operations in a certain niche field is the dictionary and encyclopedia model. For example, Speak Well lists various speaking scenarios and questions. You don’t have to listen to them in order, but you can “follow the map” when you encounter similar problems in the future.

c. Social circle. For business schools like CEIBS and Cheung Kong Business School, the course content is one thing, but the circle of entrepreneurial classmates built with extremely high barriers to entry is equally eye-catching. Today’s paid knowledge products are all consciously building “circles”, but - who can maximize the social value of the circle?

Finally, everything has just begun and there are still many problems, but precisely because there are so many problems, you have the opportunity to solve bottlenecks and earn enough dividends.

Young educated people, are you ready?

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